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After Paris we went to Rome!

It was fun to see how different Rome felt compared to Paris: a little more gritty, colorful, and way hotter. Neither of us had been to Italy before, and neither of us spoke any Italian (I failed Duolingo), so it was a bit more of an adventure.

Beautiful streets! Totally different from Paris. I don't know why this surprised me so much, but I'm going to blame it on my American naivete. 

The Colosseum! Following Rick Steve's advice helped us avoid most of the line-waiting and his free audio guide was entertaining and informative. I LOVE RICK STEVES.

Roman Forum! It's incredible to me how intertwined ancient and modern Rome are. I loved seeing ancient ruins all over the city.

Like in Paris, we took a cooking class. This time, we made a full meal: two different types of pasta dough (semolina flour + water versus flour + egg), two different pasta sauces (tomato sauce, broccoli goat cheese-I don't even like goat cheese usually but this was SO good), fried zucchini blossoms, artichokes, and chocolate pear cake. This was awesome, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes to cook and will be in Rome.

We also did a food tour in Trastevere and I'm still thinking about this cacio e pepe and amatriciana pasta. 

Also, still thinking about this suppli (fried risotto ball). I would eat this every day if I could.

The Pantheon at night. I loved how walkable Rome was, which allowed us to see a lot of the major sites both intentionally during the day, and accidentally at night, while we were heading back to our Airbnb for the evening.

 Day trip to Tuscany! This was fun but also not, because a lot of it was geared toward wine tasting (which I didn't realize based on the tour description online). Worth experiencing the beautiful scenery and seeing the Italian countryside, though, even if we spent our lunch getting the elderly ladies seated across from us drunk by giving them all of our wine.

The Trevi Fountain was worth the hype. Rome has so many beautiful fountains but this was in a league of its own. 

 We also day tripped to Pompeii/Mount Vesuvius. The view from the end of the trail on Vesuvius was amazing, and this was definitely a highlight.

Pompeii was also incredible. I had no idea it was so large, and I wish we had had more time to explore it.

This mega cheese/meat/fruit/spread board was our dinner one night and now I'm asking myself why do we not eat this for dinner every night? It was fantastic.

We spent a day at the Vatican, seeing the museum/Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. These pictures don't do St. Peter's justice. We saw what felt like a hundred incredible ornate churches while in Rome (we'd pop in every one we saw while walking around) but this outdid them all. Absolutely amazing. Rick Steves also saved us hours of lines with a shortcut from the Sistine Chapel to the cathedral, so next time you're going to Italy, buy his dang book.

Pretty Piazza Navona, early in the morning before all the other tourists got there.

All in all, it was a wonderful vacation, and I feel so lucky that we had the chance to do this before I started working full-time and Aaron started fellowship. It's something I've been wanting to do basically since the last time I got on a plane to fly back to the US from France, and this trip did not disappoint. Thanks for having us, Europe!

midnight in...

Before moving to North Carolina, Aaron and I heeded Leslie Knope's advice:

"In times of stress or moments of transition, sometimes it can feel like the whole world is closing in on you. When that happens, you should close your eyes, take a deep breath, listen to the people that love you when they give you advice, and remember what really matters. And if you have the ability to go to Paris, by all means, go to Paris."

So, we went to Paris:

Our teeny studio Airbnb was right by the Louvre, so we walked past it every day. And one of those days, we went inside it and saw beautiful Winged Victory. We also saw the original painting of a 9000 piece puzzle that Aaron had put together, which neither of us realized was actually a famous Renaissance painting. Surprise! Paris, you're a thrill!

I don't think I appreciated how beautiful Paris was when I first visited when I was in college. Philly helped adjust my expectations for beautiful cities and MAN Paris is beautiful. I couldn't stop taking pictures of ordinary streets and buildings.

One of my favorite things we did was take a food tour of Monmartre, which culminated in us eating a meal of bread, cheese, meats, chocolate, and pastries in this cute little room, overlooking the street in the picture below. It was educational and delicious, my two favorite things!!

The other cool thing we did was take a macaron cooking class at a little cooking school near city hall. Once again, educational and delicious. Macarons are notoriously tricky, so it was awesome to have a professional show us what to do and what to look for. We came away with a box of ~40 cookies, which we snacked on the rest of the trip.

It was fun to show Aaron all the places I loved the last time I was here. Sainte-Chapelle was high on the list. While we were there, a boys choir was visiting and performed just one angelic song. We were so lucky to be there at the same time and get to listen to that little piece of heaven.

Couldn't pass up going to Versailles, even if it was chilly and rainy.

The opulence of Versailles was a sharp contrast to the elegant simplicity of the Mormon temple we walked over to afterward (of course our trip was during the two weeks of the year it's closed for cleaning, so we couldn't actually go inside. But the grounds were lovely!)

On our last morning, I made Aaron go to one last art museum: Musee de l'Organerie. I'm happy to report walking into that rotunda ringed with Monet's water lilies was just as moving 8 years later.

This is us in front of the I Love You Wall loving Paris with all our freaking hearts. Hope we'll be back someday <3